The Third
Sunday after Trinity
20th
June 2010 9:00am
Sung Eucharist
Preacher:
The Revd Canon David Pickering
Readings: Isaiah 65:1-9, Galatians 3:23-end, Luke 8:26-39
Luke 8. 39 The man from whom the demons
had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus
sent him away, saying, ¡¥Return to your home, and
declare how much God has done for you.¡¦ So he went away, proclaiming throughout
the city how much Jesus had done for him.
What a change! What a reversal! A man so deranged
and out of control, seemingly demonically possessed is so transformed that he
is commissioned to be a missionary! To go and tell of the good things God has
done for him.
This morning I¡¦d like to begin with two stories.
In the Church Times a couple of weeks ago there was
an article about the Revd Matt Martinson, who is now
the Assistant Curate at St Nicholas¡¦s Church at Beverley in Yorkshire. Matt¡¦s
life has been a real transformation from growing up with a drunken father,
getting into fights, drugs and crime and eventually an 11 years jail sentence
for armed robbery.
At this point he felt that his life of violent
crime was leading to an early death.
Fortunately through ministry of various clergy and
no doubt friends he found his faith and eventually his vocation to the sacred
ministry and was ordained priest by the Archbishop of York three weeks ago.
Again, what a transformation! Matt¡¦s life was
transformed from the depths of despair and hopelessness to one of service and
ministry.
The second story is from my childhood.
One of my clearest childhood moments of fear was
watching the opening scene of the 1946 film Great Expectations.
It
begins with the young boy pip walking across the gallows strewn marshes of Kent
to his parents¡¦ grave in the local churchyard. For effect there are lots of
eerie sounds and shots before suddenly he is confronted with the awesome figure
of the escaped convict Magwitch. Just watch it on
YouTube as I did a couple of days ago. You will see how the director, David
Lean, can make it very scary, at least for a young boy of Pip¡¦s age as I was at
the time I first saw it.
Magwitch is captured and sent on
a convict ship to Australia, where he eventually finds work, makes money and
become rich. (I thought came to Hong Kong make money, not Australia) To cut a
long Dickens story short, Magwitch sends money back
to England to enable Pip to become gentleman.
Again a transformation from a hopeless situation
As a I grew up and first
heard the story from this morning¡¦s gospel of the man in the tombs, (read
churchyard) possessed with demons that opening scene from the film came back to
haunt me. And it¡¦s still at the back of my mind every time I come across this
reading.
All three of our readings today are about hope to
the hopeless.
Our Gospel passage introduces us to a complete
no-hoper, a poor man whose mind is so deranged that he lives naked among the
tombs, isolated from all normal contact. He was probably a danger to himself
and to others. So was to be avoided at all cost. He is so victimized by the
powers within him ¡V physical, emotional, mental of even demonic- that he is
condemned to a half life.
Then out of the boat steps Jesus, and with him a
power which by a word is able to restore this poor man. Another
transformation. This time from a total outcast of society to such a
degree of inclusion that the man wants to join Jesus, but instead is given the
divine commission to go and tell others the good things God has done for him.
But you may say, ¡¥so what! Not a very good out come for the pigs and their owners.¡¦ We need to be
careful not to lose sight of the cultural context of the story. To the Jewish
mind pigs are ritually unclean. So they are a fit place for the banishment of
demons, and, as it turns out, their destruction in the abyss.
In our OT reading the first seven verses are a long
condemnation of the Israelite nation¡¦s provocation of God. In their
relationship with God they have got themselves into a hopeless situation.
See, it is written before me: I
will not keep silent, but I will repay; I will indeed repay into their laps their
iniquities and their* ancestors¡¦ iniquities together, says the Lord; because they offered incense on the mountains and
reviled me on the hills, I will measure into their laps
full payment for their actions.
But the final two verses bring a promise of hope
because God will not utterly reject his people but will preserve some of them
partly because of his promises to the ancestors of the people. Thus says the Lord:
As the wine is found in the cluster, and they say, ¡¥Do not destroy it,
for there is a blessing in it¡¦, so I will do for my servants¡¦
sake,
and not destroy them all.
I
will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from
Judah inheritors of my mountains; my chosen shall inherit it, and my servants shall settle there.
With God there is always hope, positive hope.
St Paul, in our reading from Galatians, reminds us
that, by nature, we are all prisoners, shades of Magwitch
here, as we are held prisoners by the Law because of our human weakness and
failure have no chance of fulfilling the perfection of God¡¦s will and purpose.
As Paul writes elsewhere in Romans 7.12, God¡¦s law is holy, righteous and
good.
We may be able to generally observe the civil laws
of our society, and all the Ordinances of Hong Kong SAR, but God¡¦s Law is
something way beyond human law. It is one of perfection. We can only come to
God through faith, not by simply trying to keep his laws. Our inherent failure
to keep the perfection of God¡¦s law can only condemn us. But there is hope for
those who simply reach out in faith, like the man on the Gergasene
beach whose very ravings, what do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you do not torment me were a
prayer for deliverance.
Without faith we too are hopeless. But faith brings
hope.
A modern view of hope is that it is something to
cling on to when all else seems to be lost. Things are pretty desperate at the
moment so all I can do is hope for the best. Christian hope is something more
positive. It is resurrection hope. It is the knowledge and the certainty that
with God whenever and whatever cross we may have to bear at the moment, the
resurrection hope will bring us through.
In the very famous passage from the end of I
Corinthians 13, St Paul talks about Faith, Hope and Love, abide together, and
the greatest is Love. But that does not mean we should forget about or ignore
Faith and Hope, and perhaps especially Hope.
Amen